India's mechanism to monitor Covid-19 death is robust and there is no question of "five to seven times excess deaths" than the official number of Covid-19 fatalities, as claimed by an international magazine, the Centre said. Without naming The Economist, which claimed that "the government's numbers represent a disturbingly small fraction of the real figure", the union health ministry on Saturday said the analysis is not sound.
In a sharply worded rebuttal, the Centre raised a few questions over the methodology on which the article on Covid-19 death in India is based.
One, the ministry said the article is speculative and the analysis is based on extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence.
Two, the article has taken data from studies that were not done by validated tools, the Centre said.
Three, the study they have quoted is supposedly done by Christopher Laffler of Virginia Commonwealth University. "An internet search of research studies in scientific database such Pubmed, Research Gate, etc., did not locate this study and the detailed methodology of this study has not been provided by the magazine," the ministry said.
Another study was done in Telangana based on insurance claims, the Centre said adding that there is no peer-reviewed scientific data available on such study
{{/usCountry}}Another study was done in Telangana based on insurance claims, the Centre said adding that there is no peer-reviewed scientific data available on such study
{{/usCountry}}Four, two other studies by Prashnam and C-Voter have been quoted in the article. The ministry said these firms are well versed in conducting, predicting and analysing poll results and even then their poll predictions have gone wrong. They were never ever associated with public health research. "Even in their own area of work of psephology, their methodologies for predicting poll results have been wide off the mark many times," the Centre said.
The overall Covid-19 toll in India shot up after the Bihar government revised its toll saying the government got to know from various sources that the number of Covid-19 deaths is more than what has been reported as many deaths in private hospitals, homes went unaccounted. From 5,458, the toll went to 9.429 after the revision, triggering speculations in the international media whether India's Covid-19 death toll has been manipulated.
At present, India's Covid-19 death toll stands at 3,67,081, starting from the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.
Emphasis on correct recording
The Centre clarified that it has several mechanisms in place to check if there is any under-reporting of data at any level. "States consistently reporting a lower number of daily deaths were told to re-check their data. A case in point is the Union Government writing to the State of Bihar to provide detailed date and district-wise break-up of the reconciled number of deaths to Union Health Ministry," it said.
'Difference in death figure is possible but...': Centre
The Centre accepted that difference in mortality recorded during a public health crisis and after may differ, but such studies are done after the crisis is over, when data on mortalities are available from reliable sources. "The methodologies for such studies are well established, the data sources are defined as also the valid assumptions for computing mortality," the ministry said.